Transcript MD logo and title - ETPRO

2004 C3 Conference
Plagiarism in the 21st Century:
Paper Mills, Cybercheating, and Internet Detectives in
the Electronic Age
University of Maryland
Educational Technology Outreach
Director: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
Overview
This presentation is aimed at providing an
overview of the current state of:
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•
•
•
•
•
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Plagiarism
Strategies to Combat Electronic Plagiarism
Internet Paper Mills
Locating Electronic Paper Mills
Detecting Plagiarized Work
Tracking Down Suspicious Papers Electronically
Other Resources
June 18, 2004
Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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Cybercheating in the 21st
Century
Cheating in school “has been
around as long as organized
education” (Chidley, 1997).
Chidley, Joe. "Tales Out of School: Cheating Has Long Been a Great Temptation,
and the Internet Makes It Easier Than Ever." Maclean's Nov. 24, 1997:76-80.
Full-text. Infotrac SearchBank: Expanded Academic Index. Online. Information
Access. 11 Dec. 1998.
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Plagiarism Defined
• Plagiarism is stealing or using the writing or ideas
of others as though they are one's own.
• The word comes from Latin, plagium which means
"kidnapping".
• According to West's Encyclopedia of American Law,
plagiarism is "the act of appropriating the literary
composition of another author, or excerpts, ideas, or
passages there from, and passing the material off as
one's own creation.”
• Plagiarism is theft of another person's writing or
ideas.
(Definition used with permission (Feb 29, 2000) from The West Group,
West's Encyclopedia of American Law.) from UWPlatt
http://www.uwplatt.edu/~library/reference/plagiarism.htmlx
June 18, 2004
Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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What is Cheating or
Plagiarism?
• Stephen Wilhoit lists the following types of plagiarism:
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–
–
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Buying a paper from a research service or term paper mill.
Turning in another student’s work.
Turning in a paper a peer has written for the student.
Copying a paper from a source text without proper
acknowledgment.
– Copying materials from a source text, supplying proper
documentation, but leaving out quotation marks.
– Paraphrasing materials from a source text without
appropriate documentation.
Wilhoit, Stephen. "Helping Students Avoid Plagiarism." College Teaching 42 (Fall 1994):
161-164. In Hinchliffe, Lisa. "Cut-and-Paste Plagiarism: Preventing, Detecting, and
Tracking Online Plagiarism." http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/~janicke/plagiary.htm. 25 Feb.
1999.
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Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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What is Cheating or
Plagiarism? (cont.)
• A picture, diagram or artistic representation from a
book, magazine, newspaper, pamphlet etc. or the
Internet
• Music downloaded from the Internet or off a CD
• A video clip
• Using an electronic translator to translate your work
into another language and turning it in as your own
writing in a different language
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Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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Let’s Try
Go To:
• Plagiarism
An IRCC Library Tutorial
1.
I
http://www.ircc.cc.fl.us/learnres/libsrv/libresrc/plagiarism/
plagiarism.htm
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Current Statistics
State by state levels of digital plagiarism, based on
papers submitted to Turnitin.com
Calculations normalized based on the number of
term papers analyzed from a particular state.
Digital plagiarism is also growing at an alarming
rate internationally, as is indicated by our many
Turnitin.com subscribers overseas.
http://www.plagiarism.org/problem.html
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Statistics
• Center for Academic Integrity study by
Donald McCabe from Rutgers University,
reports that 80 percent of college students
admit to cheating at least once
Source: Center for Academic Integrity study: Student Cheating in American
High Schools. Donald L. McCabeMay 2001
http://www.academicintegrity.org/
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Center for Academic Integrity study:
Student Cheating in American High Schools
• One of the first large scale studies: Survey
conducted by Donald L. McCabe-Rutgers
University
– Almost 4500 high school students completed a written
survey in the 2000-2001 school year
– These students represented 25 schools around the country 14 public, 11 private
– In class survey - 92% of students receiving surveys provided
a useable response
– 52% of respondents were in the 11th grade - 17% in 9th,
16% in 10th & 15% in 12th
Source: Center for Academic Integrity study: Student Cheating in American High Schools. Donald
L. McCabeMay 2001 http://www.academicintegrity.org/
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Research Chronology :
Center for Academic Integrity Study:
Student Cheating in American High Schools
• 2000/2001
– U.S. high school survey - 4,471 students at 25 schools across
the U.S.
• 2001/2002
– CAI Assessment Survey – 2,526 students on 12 campuses
• 2002/2003
– Enter the Canadians
From: Promoting Academic Integrity: ACRL – Delaware Valley Chapter May 7, 2004 (See:
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:0CLrctGUaX0J:www.acrldvc.org/spring04/donmccabe.ppt+Center+for+Acade
mic+Integrity+study:+Student+Cheating+in+American+&hl=en)
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2002-2003 Survey
• Canada
• Students, faculty, TAs, first year students
• 11 participating schools (including UM)
• United States
• Students, faculty, TAs
• 23 participating schools
From: Promoting Academic Integrity: ACRL – Delaware Valley Chapter May 7,
2004 (See:
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:0CLrctGUaX0J:www.acrldvc.org/spring04/donmccabe.ppt+Center+for+Academic+Integrity+study:+St
udent+Cheating+in+American+&hl=en)
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Methodological Issues
• Self-report data
• Web-based surveys
• Low response rates
• Large sample size
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Respondents – 2002/2003
Canada
13,644
U.S.
16,060
Grad students
1,318
2,175
First year survey
1,269
-
Undergrads
Missing
276
580
Faculty
1,902
2,608
683
655
TAs
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Key Results (US)
• 74% of respondents reported one or more instances of serious test
cheating.
• 72% reported one or more instances of serious cheating on written
work.
• 97% report at least one questionable activity (from copying
homework to test copying)
• More than 30% of respondents admit to repetitive, serious cheating
on tests/exams
• Yet only 20% agreed with statement, ‘Cheating was a serious
problem in my high school.’
• 68% expect less test cheating at university. 19% not sure.
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Major Conclusions
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•
•
•
Cheating is widespread
Students find it easy to rationalize cheating
The Internet is raising new questions
Students feel that many teachers ignore
cheating, at least on occasion
• Students cheat for a variety of reasons
Source: Center for Academic Integrity study: Student Cheating in American High
Schools. Donald L. McCabeMay 2001 http://www.academicintegrity.org
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Plagiarism & The Internet
• 15% have submitted a paper obtained in
large part from a term paper mill or website
• 52% have copied a few sentences from a
website without citing the source
• 90% of the students using the Internet to
plagiarize have also plagiarized from
written sources. (The Web has ‘created’ few
new cheaters - 6% of all students.)
Source: Center for Academic Integrity study: Student Cheating in American High
Schools. Donald L. McCabeMay 2004 http://www.academicintegrity.org
June 18, 2004
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Some Teachers Ignore
Cheating
• 47% of students think teachers sometimes
ignore cheating.
• The major reasons students think teachers
ignore cheating are:
– Don’t want to deal with hassle (18%)
– Don’t care (11%)
– Not worth trouble on small assignments (7%)
Source: Center for Academic Integrity study: Student Cheating in American High Schools.
Donald L. McCabeMay 2004 http://www.academicintegrity.org
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Why Students Cheat
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•
•
•
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Lazy/don’t study/didn’t prepare (32%)
To pass/get good grades (29%)
Pressures to succeed (12%)
Don’t know answers/understand (9%)
Time pressure - too much work, etc. (5%)
Other (13%)
Source: Center for Academic Integrity study: Student Cheating in American High
Schools. Donald L. McCabeMay 2004 http://www.academicintegrity.org
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Other Findings
• Serious cheating is generally lower at
private vs. public schools
• Students in midwest report lower levels of
cheating than schools in west and northeast
• Few consistent differences by gender
• Serious test cheating grows from 9th to 11th
grade and drops off slightly in 12th grade
Source: Center for Academic Integrity study: Student Cheating in American High
Schools. Donald L. McCabeMay 2004 http://www.academicintegrity.org
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Other Studies
• 2000 Josephson Institute of Ethics studies
– Nationwide survey of 8,600 high school students
– Indicated 61% of students in 1992 admitted to
cheating on exams
– 71% in 2000 admitted to cheating on exams
• 58.3% of high school students let someone else
copy their work in 1969, and 97.5% did so in 1989- The State of Americans: This Generation and the
Next (Urie Bronfenbrenner, Editor).
For further study
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Still More Statistics
• 36% of undergraduates have admitted to plagiarizing
written material-- Psychological Record survey (Roig M.
Psychological Record 1997; 47: 113-122).
• 90% of students believe that cheaters are either never
caught or have never been appropriately disciplined-- US
News and World Report poll (1000 adults-over sample of 200
college students in October of 1999)
• 257 chief student affairs officers across the country believe
that colleges and universities have not addressed the
cheating problem adequately-- from a study by Ronald M.
Aaron and Robert T. Georgia: Administrator Perceptions of
Student Academic Dishonesty in Collegiate Institutions (2001).
• 30% of a large sampling of Berkeley students were recently
caught plagiarizing directly from the Internet-results of a
Turnitin.com test, conducted from April-May 2000.
For Further Study
June 18, 2004
Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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More to Read
• The Cheating Culture
Note: See other areas outside of the educational community
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Academic Dishonesty
“Acts of academic dishonesty are on the
rise at universities and Internet
plagiarism is in” (Mary Clarke-Pearson,
2001).
Source: Download. Steal. Copy. Cheating at the University. Daily pennsylvanian.com. Nov. 27,
2001
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Current State of Cheating:
Why is this happening?
• Margaret Fain and Peggy Bates’ 8 common themes:
– Honesty and integrity have very little to do with the "real" world or school
work.
– An "education" doesn’t connect with “gaining knowledge on your own”
– Students come to school to graduate - “get a diploma”. How they get this
credential might be less important than simply getting it.
– Many students cheat or plagiarize to maintain high GPAs - there is
tremendous pressure from parents, college admissions, and corporate
recruiters
– Some think it is no longer "socially unacceptable".
– Many think that anything and everything on the Internet is public domain.
– Many do not know what constitutes plagiarism--they have not learned about
plagiarism in high school.
– Some students actually engage in unethical behavior out of self-defense students in their classes are using it to excel, creating unfair competition
Source: Current State of Cheating Teaching Effectiveness Seminar: Coastal Carolina University, March 5, 1999
(Updated March 3, 2000, Revised March 26, 2001) Margaret Fain is Assistant Head of Public Services, and
Peggy Bates is Reference Librarian at Kimbel Library, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, SC.
http://www.coastal.edu/library/papermil.htm
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Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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So if everyone is doing it why
haven’t more been caught?
•
•
•
"Who wants to sit around looking for websites trying to find out if
a paper is plagiarized or not... pretty soon you're a private
investigator."-- a Stanford University professor, from an article in
TechWeb News.
"[Plagiarism] is one of those areas in the academy that no one
wants to talk about and is often rewarded by not addressing
actively."-- an Associate VP of Student Life, as posted in The
Chronicle of Higher Education's "Colloquy."
"Too few universities are willing to back up their professors when
they catch students cheating, according to academic observers.
The schools are simply not willing to expend the effort required to
get to the bottom of cheating cases"-- as stated by The National
Center for Policy Analysis.
Source: http://www.Turnitin.com
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How Can We Help Prevent plagiarism ?
• Be clear about cheating and plagiarism policies
– Define what plagiarism is and isn't
– Discuss plagiarism as a moral and ethical issue
– Make students aware of what constitutes
plagiarism, polices about the unethical behavior,
and how you handle it.
– Discuss as a legal issue of fair use and
intellectual property. Students need to know
and understand copyright and intellectual property
laws rather than – “Don’t do it because I told you
not to do it”.
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Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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Present Examples
• Talk about past cases
– From your classes
– Examples of legal cases
• Universities
• Work related
• K12
Source: Pruitt-Mentle, Cyberethics Seminar for Professional Educators: Ethical and Legal
Implications for Classroom Technology Use University of Maryland, College Park: July 16-17, 2002
June 18, 2004
Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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The Right Way
– Discuss copyright and the Internet.
– Model how to document web pages
– Provide information on documenting materials
from online sources
• Show them how to correctly cite electronic sources.
• Conduct short activities and exercises to practice
– Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the
proper use of electronic sources (up to date
current news/need to check and verify sources)
Source: Pruitt-Mentle, Cyberethics Seminar for Professional Educators: Ethical and Legal Implications for
Classroom Technology Use University of Maryland, College Park: July 16-17, 2002
June 18, 2004
Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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Preventing Plagiarism
•
•
Demonstrate how easy it is to check paper mills and internet
sources
Have students do a similar exercise as we do today
– Find if someone has plagiarized by using the web
– Download a paper from one of the paper mill sites and have students
analyze it to see that these sites produce poor quality work in many cases
•
•
•
Assign current and local topics
Assign an initial research “short paper” on the topic of ethics,
cybercheating, or cyberethics
Be specific about the paper
– Not just general statement “ a paper on the Civil war”
– Include how many pages for each section
•
Change topics from semester to semester or from class to class
Source: Pruitt-Mentle, Cyberethics Seminar for Professional Educators: Ethical and Legal Implications for
Classroom Technology Use University of Maryland, College Park: July 16-17, 2002
June 18, 2004
Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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Anti-plagiarism Activities
• Tie the topics into the class experience. Ask students to
share their ideas for their paper as it is being written,
rather than only at the end.
• Have writing assignments that have students analyze
classroom activities or discussions, as well as,
referenced sources
• Include a section in their paper that discusses their topic
in light of what was covered in class.
• Ask students to summarize main points of their papers
while in the research phase
–
–
–
–
As a warm up exercise
A quiz or part of a quiz
Bonus or extra credit points
Part of a test
Source: Pruitt-Mentle, Cyberethics Seminar for Professional Educators: Ethical and Legal
Implications for Classroom Technology Use University of Maryland, College Park: July 16-17, 2002
June 18, 2004
Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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Focus on the Research
Process
• Structure the project so you focus on the
process of writing.
• Allow extended time to work on the activity
– Set up the project so that sections are worked on
over the course of the semester.
– Have different sections due at different times and
provide feedback along the way.
Source: Pruitt-Mentle, Cyberethics Seminar for Professional Educators: Ethical and Legal Implications for
Classroom Technology Use University of Maryland, College Park: July 16-17, 2002
June 18, 2004
Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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Extended Time
• Ask for several of the following to be turned in:
–
–
–
–
–
–
An abstract about what they plan to write about
Sketch of brainstorming session
A paper outline
Multiple drafts
A topic proposal for their paper
Multiple “new vocabulary” and annotated bibliographies with
reading reflections
– A bibliography that includes multiple sources and types of
sources (i.e. 3 books, 2 journal articles and 4 websources).
– Rough drafts and/or working notes.
– All working drafts turned in with the final paper.
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Research is a Process
• As part of the paper or as a separate
assignment, have students reflect personally
on the topic they are writing on or on the
process of doing research and writing.
• Make sure students know that you read
carefully the papers that are handed in.
Source: Pruitt-Mentle, Cyberethics Seminar for Professional Educators: Ethical and Legal Implications for
Classroom Technology Use University of Maryland, College Park: July 16-17, 2002
June 18, 2004
Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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How To Detect Plagiarism
• Being familiar with a student's style of writing,
grammar, and vocabulary makes it easier to determine
if they are the writer of the paper.
• A shift between plagiarized material and student work
(writing style)
• Unusual formatting or formatting that does not match
what you specified
• Website printout page numbers or dates, grayed out
letters or unusual use of upper/lower case and
capitalization.
• Unexplained jargon or advanced vocabulary and/or
sentence structure.
• Unable to explain an obscure point
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Margaret Fain and Peggy Bates -Coastal Carolina - 15 suggestions for
Detecting Plagiarized Papers
1.
2.
3.
4.
June 18, 2004
Writing style, language, vocabulary, tone,
grammar, etc. is above or below what the student
usually produces. It doesn't sound like the student.
Sections or sentences do not relate to the overall
content of the paper. Students may "personalize" a
paper by adding a paragraph that ties the paper to
the class assignment.
Look for strange text at the top or bottom of
printed pages.
Look for gray letters in the text, often an
indication that the page was downloaded from the
web, since color letters on a screen show up gray
in a printout.
Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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Margaret Fain and Peggy Bates -Coastal Carolina - 15 suggestions for
Detecting Plagiarized Papers
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
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Web addresses left at the top or bottom of the
page. Many free essays have a tag line at the end
of the essay that students often miss.
Strange or poor layout. Papers that have been
downloaded and re-printed often have page
numbers, headings, or spacing that just don't look
right.
References to graphs, charts, or accompanying
material that isn't there.
References to professors, classes or class
numbers that are not taught at your school
Citations are to materials out of date, out of the
country or not owned by your local (school) library
Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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Margaret Fain and Peggy Bates -Coastal Carolina - 15 suggestions for
Detecting Plagiarized Papers
10. Web sites listed in citations are inactive.
11. All citations are to materials that are older than five
years.
12. References are made to historical persons or events
in the current sense.
13. Students can not identify citations or provide copies of
the cited material.
14. Students can not summarize the main points of the
paper or answer questions about specific sections of the
paper.
15. When provided with a page from their paper that has
words or passages removed, students can not fill in
the blanks with the missing words or with reasonable
synonyms.
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Internet Detective
• You can locate the original papers or sources
on the Internet using a variety of techniques
– Search for the title of paper
– Search for the title using quotation
marks “ ” If the student hasn't had the
foresight to change the title, you may find it
listed on a term paper site.
– Identify a unique string of words in the
paper
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Cyberethics Seminar: Davina Pruitt-Mentle
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Internet Detective
• Check for original reference identification
clues.
– Follow up with a web search for a personal
homepage and the website(s) of the
organization(s) with which the referenced
author is affiliated.
• Look at original text sources listed in the
bibliography.
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Internet Detective
• Use a variety of search engines
– Yahoo
– Google
– AskJeeves
– DogPile
– NorthernLight
– Hotbot
– Infoseek
• Search for the phrase using quotes " " and + (Boolean).
– For example: +austen +"fair share of monsters"
turns up only one paper
– Utilize a plagiarism detection site
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Try This: Exercise 1
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Other Web Sources
• On-line newspapers, journals and magazines
• Academic web sites like NIH, ISTE, NASA, DoEd and
universities post technical papers.
• Conference proceedings
• Student work (papers, essays, examines and
projects) are added to personal web pages, teacher
sites and/or school websites
• Try searching for: "term paper", "research
assistance", "model papers', "research papers", or
"technical papers" will retrieve both term paper sites
and web pages with papers on them.
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Paper Mills in 2004
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Paper Mills in 2004
• Sites are in the business of providing pre-written
research papers.
• Most sites contain disclaimers telling potential
buyers not to submit these papers for a grade, but
students can and do turn in these papers as their
own.
– All graphics, text information, designs, logos, & banners on the
website are copyrighted © 2001 by 007termpapers.com. All term
papers, essays, theses, dissertations, and research papers sold via
007termpapers.com are the property of the corporation and its
contracted writers. Our work is designed only to assist students in the
preparation of their own work and is never to be used as a substitute.
Students who use our service are responsible not only for writing their
own papers, but also for citing 007termpapers.com as a source when
doing so. Instructions for proper citation of our company are available
upon request by writing to [email protected]
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Digital Paper Mills
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What do you get?
• Free papers-click on the site and download the paper.
• Free papers but registration required-ask for personal
information
• “Exchange Sites” - you must submit a paper to get a "free"
paper.
• Many have a membership fee that allows unlimited
access.
• Most charge per page. Bill your credit card.
• Delivery usually by email.
• For extra charge you can have them “special order”usually 4 days
• They run sales and summer blowout specials
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Try This: Exercise 2
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Problems?
• What are students really getting?
– No guarantee of quality or currency.
– Papers that are dated and not reflective of current
events and trends.
– Substandard writing and research.
• See William McHenry's "Reflections on the
Internet Paper Mills" for a more detailed
discussion of prices and quality.
(http://georgetown.edu/honor/papermill.html )
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Plagiarism Detection Sites
• Besides searching the web, there are
Plagiarism detection sites available
• Evaluate each service before using them.
– Take advantage of free trials and read the fine
print.
– When evaluating services, take a look at Andy
Denhart's article from Salon, "The Web's
plagiarism police" which covers some of the
pitfalls of using plagiarism verification sites.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/06/14/plagiarism/print.html
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Detection Sites
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Try This: Exercise 3
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Conclusion
• Technology has enabled new forms of
plagiarism
• Technology has also provided means for
educators to more easily detect plagiarism
• Plagiarism is minimized by knowledge
– Ethical issues
– Ease of detection
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